A SINGLE MAN

Warning: PG: Nudity. 101 minutes

Grade: B+ Theatres, showtimes, B13-14

There's delicious poetry in the notion that A Single Man may be the most macho effort of the movie season.

Stripped down and lean, dramatically muscular in all the right places, and astonishingly powerful at every surprising turn, former fashion icon Tom Ford's feature directing debut is a piece of cinematic beefcake.

But it doesn't strut its stuff. Instead, this film based on Christopher Isherwood's seminal book about a gay professor moving through the haze of mourning walks a very subtle path.

We don't know it when we first see him donning his elegant brown suit and tailored shirt, but something drastic has happened in the life of George Falconer (Colin Firth). Behind his glasses, something seems a little off, but we're not sure what it is until we hear the news -- delivered over the phone -- that his long-term partner died in a car accident.

George is in an altered state. There's a shriek of pain stuck in his throat and he refuses to let it out -- largely because he's living in the waxy skin of semi-truth. George is a homosexual who's been sharing a life with Jim (Matthew Goode) for more than a decade, but when he goes to his job at the local college where he teaches, he's simply the dapper Brit in the tweed suit who makes the ladies' hearts race whenever he inquires about his mail.

On the day we stand beside him, however, George feels very different about himself and the outside world. We get a sense that he's got nothing to lose and sees the next 24 hours as his chance to set the George Falconer record "straight" -- with the universe, if no one else.

One could say this is a movie about loss, since most of the story revolves around George's growing sense of emptiness.

But loss is really only the beginning, because the sudden tragedy spurs a period of profound reflection, and finally ushers the grieving English professor into a new understanding of his own life, as well as the lives of those around him.

It sounds heavy, and, in so many ways, A Single Man is a weighty work. Yet, thanks to Ford's execution that works as a series of connected moments, the film comes equipped with an inflatable life vest.

Considering George is as buoyant as an anvil in the wake of his lover's death, it's something Ford creates from the outside, through sheer mood and visuals.

He disappears behind the dark rims and conjures magic in his brown eyes as he reveals the myriad facets of George. A genuinely touching performance that evokes an entire rainbow of emotions without a hint of fear or self-consciousness, Firth may want to start practising his acceptance speech for awards time.

Meet the Vancouver lawyer who adapted A Single Man's screenplay Sunday in E-Today!